What did you think of the site? E-mail haveago@dancingwiththegatekeepers.com

Sunday, 11 March 2018

WE HAVE THE CHANCE TO TURN THE PAGES OVER [100]

This is my one hundredth article for “Leigh Spence is Dancing
with the Gatekeepers,” probably the best blog title in the world, and I thank
you all for reading what began as a weekly writing exercise in May 2016. I must
have written at least sixty thousand words since then but, perhaps more
importantly, sales of the “Daily Mail” newspaper fell by over two hundred
thousand copies in that time. I know these figures are not related, but I have
more to say about this later.

What I love about writing is the process, the build-up, the
formation of an idea. This usually culminates in a frenzy of typing at the last
possible moment, like this one has, especially if the ideas came later. For months,
I assumed trying to equate the outlandish nature of the current political
climate with Dadaist performance art did not work out, leaving me with lessons
for next time, but that article, using a quote from Alfred Jarry’s absurdist
play “Ubu Roi” – “That’s a beautiful speech, but nobody’s listening” – has become
the most popular article so far.

Other moments of apparent madness included making blue
pyramids of Quorn, making the food more attractive to children’ the assertion
that “ain’t” is a proper word that adds punch to song lyrics; that our old
family car, an Austin Ambassador with a brown interior, is now one of the
rarest production cars in Britain; that people build super-basements so they no
longer have to go out; that there are many types of Range Rover to help those
that identify as Range Rover drivers, so they can live their life the way they
feel; and that Donald Trump is the first world leader to restrict his own
ability to speak, rather than restrict his own people. When there is always a
next time, ideas come freely.

But what if time is running out? With endless space online,
and a curious brain that won’t shut up, my writing has no reason to cease, but
what if I was a newspaper, speaking with a one-track mind, in a country where
newspaper sell fewer copies than ever?

The world knows “Daily Mail” as the most-read news website
in the English, with a very showbiz-led mix on its brightly coloured front page,
but UK residents also know it as a very conservative, populist newspaper that
makes many people want to spit – you can buy t-shirts and badges saying, “I’m
the one the Daily Mail warned you about”. It began in 1896, but its current form
evolved in 1971, when the seriously-minded broadsheet “Mail” was merged with a more
populist tabloid paper, the “Daily Sketch,” with “Sketch” staff effectively
taking over the new compact “Mail,” building a fiercely confident, conservative
voice that, within a few years, overturned fifty years of the “Daily Express”
beating it at its own game – the “Mail” now sells as much as the “Express,” “Daily
Mirror” and “Daily Star” put together.

So why did I mention the “Mail’s” sales had fallen? Looking
at figures quoted by the “Press Gazette” website, its circulation peaked at
2.59 million copies in September 2001. By February 2018, that figure halved to
1.34 million, down eleven percent on the previous year. The global shift to
online put printed newspapers into decline, and when Mail Online effectively
gives you the same content for free, why bother with the “Daily Mail” at all?

After reading it for the last month, I wish I knew. I
consider myself to be politically in the centre, but I am definitely to the
left of the “Mail.” It reads like a magazine, using many double-page spreads of
stories and opinion pieces in high-contrast black on white type, bellowing its
points down to the reader in length and in depth. Using these pages to brand
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn an informant to a Communist spy, and ex-Formula
One boss Max Mosley as much of a racist as his father, everyone with connections
to them are also scrutinised and judged for their reactions, and the BBC is
criticised for not covering either of the stories at the same length – when Mosley
didn’t replyhow the “Mail” wanted, the
next day’s headline was “STILL HE WON’T APOLOGISE.” Based on what was printed, both
Corbyn and Mosley have some questions to answer, but the “Mail” has already
found them guilty as hell, let alone guilty as charged, and any raising of
their voices is a threat to a free press.

There has also been the A-Z of Millennial speak, the A-Z of
Baby Boomer speak, the “witch hunt” against men by “Hollywood feminists,” how
political correctness causes sense of humour failure, stories about the pro-EU
bias by inbred left-wing taxpayer-funded BBC, and the usual stuff about politicians,
tax avoiders, judges and investment bankers trying to thwart Brexit, preventing
the will of the British people. The last of these included a page-length
editorial comment with the headline, “They just don’t get it, do they? This elitist
class imposing THEIR views on ordinary people…”

I think the “Mail” gets off on hearing itself rage. If the “Mail”
were a person, I would run away.

The last months of screaming words has been overwhelming, the
spectacle of the Metropolitan liberal elite being lambasted by the Metropolitan
conservative elite seemed like an ironic and pointless bonfire, as the “Mail’s”
sales continue to fall – Mail Online hides many of the double-page spreads under
a link to “Columnists,” leaving the bigger stories to generate views and revenue.
For all the outrage over the content of the “Daily Mail” as a newspaper, for how
it currently uses acres of paper to tell us to stop using plastic, and for all the
advertising boycotts by Lego, Paperchase and Center Parcs, there remains one
thing: the figures show the newspaper is dying anyway. Unless the website can support
it when printing on paper is too unprofitable to continue, we will live to see
the end of the “Daily Mail” – it will happen, it will absolutely happen.

One day, just as in the dream that gave me the name for this
blog, I may turn “Leigh Spence is Dancing with the Gatekeepers” into an album, where
I will yell at those that tell you what to think, singing “all they have are
words” until fadeout. I don’t know if that will be in the next hundred articles,
but I will see where my mind takes me.